Honolulu iPhone Apps

There are some interesting developments in the local iPhone application community. Granted iPhone app development here is nothing new. I recall in the beginning of this year when Russel Cheng over at Oceanit announced their iFu Kung Fu app. It was all the rage and quite novel at the time. Now iPhone apps are popping up in the most interesting places. We recently had a Bytemarks Lunch at Mini Garden where Michal Anne Rogondino showed us her new ShakyGlobe app. If you look closely you can see the DC comics logo. It's an interesting concept with some licensing potential. There are globes for a variety of places each one having unique digital assets. Michal Anne tells me that this is just a precursor to something bigger. So I will keep in touch to find out. Don't mind my crispy gau chee mein in the background. That was my lunch.
Also released this week was HMSA's iPhone app. (Yes, in the interest of full disclosure, I did have a hand in this.) But any recognition goes to Kevin Lohman of Logic High Software, who did all the development and an excellent job managing this project. I was looking for something simple and came up with a basic mobile portal. We went through a couple of iterations, with a pre-release beta that used graphics that I cobbled together. This first release is very clean in appearance and functional. The app points to a variety of HMSA resources on the web like homepage, news links, Twitter accounts and Youtube videos. The free app is available in the iTunes App Store. We did it to show the potential of mobile apps and to solicit feedback on what might be of most interest in an HMSA iPhone app. You can post your comments here or send me an email. You will find me at the Contact Us tab.
Coincidentally, we covered an event on Bytemarks Cafe about an upcoming iPhone Developers Meetup coordinated by Dan Leuck from Tech Hui happening on Wed. Dec. 2nd at 6:00pm over at the Manoa Innovation Center. Bruce Kim, who I have known from Innovaware came on the show to talk about the event. It was news to me that Bruce was involved with mobile app development but his new company Userlink is focused on this. He is a good resource and has the experience to prove it. This is the second meetup for the developer group. If you are interested in mobile apps this looks like an exciting sector to keep an eye on. It is definitely building in momentum.

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2 thoughts on “Honolulu iPhone Apps”

Hey, as a fellow HMSA employee I enjoyed playing with the app. I will say I had hoped for something more interactive like a bill pay feature or a medical history tracking system, but I realize this is the first app from HMSA and more may come.

During my free time I spend a lot of time playing with my iPhone and thinking about app development. Is the iPhone Developers Meetup open for anyone to attend? It is definitely a subject that interests me.

Love learning about the local intellectual hui that is gracing us with their iPhone app developments. Gotta say I’m partial to the HMSA app. I’ve been thinking a lot about this particular app, because, yeah, I work there, too! My mind says the app combines all of HMSA Internet presence in one fell swoop. For that I like it. I especially like its news feature. I’m a news junky and I’m glad to get my fix through this.